Well I had a quick look at your armoury. Here are one or two comments. Firstly, always stick CoE up when you're dps'ing a dummy, and also in raids when noone else is providing the 13% spell damage debuff - that could be another lock, or a moonkin, or an unholy dk. Secondly, I notice that you are using Prismatic gems (like 6 all stats) in prismatic sockets like the ones you added to your belt; this is a common mistake (due to confusing language on Blizzard's part) - use 23 spellpower gems in there instead. Third, I'd invest in a Chaotic Skyflare Diamond for your headpiece. Some of your other gems are poor too - you shouldn't be socketing for mp5 for instance. Stick with 23sp for red sockets, 12 sp/10 haste for yellow ones and 12sp/10 spirit for blue ones if the socket bonus is worth it. Also since you have 3/3 Suppression you only need 368 hit rating maximum. You should be able to get your dps up a bit with that level of gear, so keep practising, some of it only comes with experience.

Affliction is very strong for solo content because of the self healing talents, it's certainly much stronger than Destruction. Felguard specs also solo very well, although if you spec specifically for solo content you are going to be losing out on raid DPS.

The biggest chunk of your damage in heroics will come from AoE, where Destruction and Affliction come out fairly close to one another. Both work best with Seed of Corruption which naturally talents better for Affliction but a Destruction Imp will provide empowered imp procs for heavy crits. I'd personally recommend you go with the spec you prefer, probably affliction if you have already grown comfortable with it. You'll either be seeding or fighting bosses who generally live long enough for your dots to do what they need to do. Affliction and Demonology sound like the best options for your two specs. Destruction isn't doing so well on the higher end raiding right now.

I dinged just this week-end with my warlock so I have some experience with what you're going through.

Regarding soloing group quests Affliction (while leveling) doesn't out-heal those elite bosses. If we could spend our time drain life-ing with a full complement of dots to enhance it, sure, but the minute we stop to re-apply dots is when we go down in flames.

In this a demo spec works for the best. I've personally dual specced at 70 and picked an extreme solo build I picked somewhere off the net whose personal DPS is low but survival is high. With it I've managed to solo a 5-man quest in Icecrown (Coprous the Defiled) with lots of difficulty but it was doable. The usual trick is to just out-survive instead of DPSing it down.

Regarding heroics. I too have been heroic farming since mad in these few days, and I'm a rabid Affliction fanboy ever since TBC, but after doing a dozen instances I felt the usual Affliction problem of things dying too fast (even final bosses). After a brief hesitant test of demo I found I'm quite happy with it. Demo does start faster and has bigger burst. Metamorphosis up every two minutes and ten seconds means it can be used often during the instance with a minimal of care to save it for the boss at the end and the Immolation Aura + SoC is brutal.

I find it a bit like BM for a hunter in the sense that our gear isn't all that so we use the pet to mitigate that, but on top of it we do provide buffs for the party.

What I'm having troubles adjusting to is the threat. After playing a hunter and a priest both with near spammable threat reduction skills to have a Soulshatter every three minutes is huge.

Also, in addition to timb, your rotation is wrong.

You open with Life Tap if you have the Glyph, else one Shadowbolt for the Improved Shadow Bolt effect. Then haunt, UA, Corruption, CoA, and filler (Shadowbolt or, at 25>%, Drain Soul) until you need to refresh. Be sure not to clip - that is, reapply DoTs before the one currently on has actually done its last tick, and expired.

I would say no. The exception would be if your corruption was applied without the t10 proc or help from any crit trinkets, then cast SoC to clear the current roll stats of corruption then re-apply.

It's actually not that simple. There are cases when you can re-apply without getting the "a more powerful spell is already active message". SoC + corruption will work in those cases as well, but you will be wasting the time needed for the SoC in that case.

I am trying to work on increasing my unstable affliction up-time from 80 to 90+ percent. Even when I am closely watching it, it always seems like I have 2 seconds left on the last tick, then I cast a shadow bolt + UA which leaves a several second gap in uptime. Are there any tricks you use to minimize this? I was thinking I could cast lifetap instead but often I am not in need of the mana.

Concerning rolling corruption, which would be the better situation?

1- Pre-potting, on the first t10 proc you recast corruption with nmic. You would then recast corruption sub 35% with pot, and hopefully nmic again.

2- Not pre-potting, on the first t10 proc you recast corruption with pot and nmic, and you wouldn't recast it below 35%.

3- Pre-potting, when t10 procs you refresh corruption with only the t10 bonus, then 35% you refresh with pot, t10, and nmic.


I usually do #2 as listed here. I just assume that having a corruption with nmic and pot throughout the entire fight is better than having it just under 35%, considering how short execute phases go now.

I also believe I saw math saying that a corruption with NMIC on it is better than refreshing it sub 35% without NMIC, does this still hold true?

ANSWER: None of the above. Fishing for a proc can take a LONG time(I've gone over 2 min without a proc before) so I really wouldn't recommend it. If you do get lucky it's a great bonus but waiting could cost you a ton of DPS. Typically I pre-pot, NMIC+Tricks+FM+Corr and let it go wild. Most of the time NMIC isn't up again come 35% so I just make sure I get another tricks and pot then to recast if the fight will go on longer. If it's going to be over before long anyways I don't even bother recasting and just continue my reg rotation.

Assuming 3/3 Fell Vitality but 0 Improved Soul Leech, do many Destro-locks find their imps running out of mana?

In other words, is there a definitive answer as to whether Improved Soul Leech is worthwhile? Since it doesn't stack with the hunter's and shadow priest's replenishment, is there actually any real benefit (to your imp) in taking ISL?

I get that there is a net DPS loss when life-tapping and that the extra 2% mana return is nice to counteract that, but I'm mainly interested in the imp's mana, not my own, given that there's no way other than this talent to rejuvenate it's mana. Does the imp benefit from other raid member's replenishments?

I have done a lot of tweaking with my lock as of late and would appreciate some feedback.

My dps on target dummies and boss dummies is relatively the same around 5.4 to 6k dps but isn't consistent. I am not too concerned but I think by watching the procs and crits I can get a better handle on this. My question has to deal with priority spells within encounters.

My basic rotation, while keeping life tap buff active is CoE, immolate, CB, conflag, spam incinerate until immolate is at 1 second then repeat.

Boss encounters in a raid setting immolate, CB, conflag, CoD, spam incinerate. If less than 60seconds is left in the fight i replace CoD with a CoA.

With conflag, is it worth tapping it a second time within the duration of immolate? I notice that the conflag cd is usually done before immolate needs to be refreshed. Also, I am using a imp firebolt macro with my incinerate spam. I am not looking for hand holding just thoughts and concerns.